-
Dense and layered pads are always the hardest. Try starting with these two layers:
LAYER 1: Voice. It sounds like a digital choir running through a phaser.
Oscillator: Vocal wavetable. It will take some experimenting on whatever synth you use to find the right wavetable. On Serum, I liked OOH_YAH_OO. Big Unison, around 12 voices, with enough detune to really smear the sound without making the pitch wobble. Set unison width to very narrow. Modulate the wavetable position with…
LFO: Very slow triangle to move back and forth through the wavetable. Modulating a vocal wavetable’s position makes it sound more like singing vocals, instead of just a static waveform.
Amp Envelope: Quick attack. Around 150-200 ms, to create a quick fade in.
Filter: Bandpass, 24 dB. Set the Cutoff a little above the middle so that you take off more lows than highs. Tweak this until it sounds like the recording. Add some Drive if it’s available to warm things up a bit.
Phaser: Full mix, slow rate. Tweak the center frequency so that it’s in the low to mid range. We want the phaser to move around in the “ow” area, not the “ee” area.
LAYER 2: Noise. The washy sound.
Osc: White Noise.
Amp Envelope: same as layer 1.
Filter: Bandpass, 24 db. Boost the resonance to really narrow the shape. Set the Cutoff below center, and modulate it with…
LFO: Triangle wave, very slow. Set the amount so that the filter starts pretty bright and slowly gets darker and rounder. If possible, have it start at the highest point of the triangle when a note is pressed so you start with that nice bright washy sound. Also route this LFO to the oscillator volume so that it gets quieter in the lower frequencies.
Phaser: Same settings as layer 1, except set the center frequency in the higher range. Now each layer’s phasing will take up different sonic space most of the time, but occasionally convene in the middle. A nice way to increase the “evolving” factor of this pad.
There’s a lot of evolving modulation happening as well so play around with that to create more random and changing movement. For example, it sounds like there might be several noise layers, each with their own volume LFOs, making them come in and out at the same time. Experiment with it.
thank you for this! you are on a godly level w this sound design.
I had to use 2 instances of serum since it only has one filter.
This got me around halfway there so im going to experiment like you said.
I also have the wave station and tried to find a sound like this to layer in there but I couldn’t find anything w that vocal sound to it.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.